You have fed the children. And once again tonight you have raised millions to address a variety of health care crises. And hopefully a large portion of this years money will go towards fixing the obama care website. [ laughter ] good morning. Its friday, october 18th. Welcome to morning joe. This has been i think the longest week ever. Were still in washington and here with us on set in washington we have a great group. Washington anchor for bbc world news katty kay. Then former White House Press secretary robert gibbs with us. Senior Political Editor and White House Correspondent for the Huffington Post sam stein who had a harrowing trip. Correspondent for bloomberg, josh green who found a new way to get his cover at the top of the show and put the creepiest picture youve ever seen, spooky creepy and i just realized i feel bad to say this, but this guy looks like my best friends husband. Im sorry. Its ted cruz. It is . Looks like jim to me. Any resemblance to bill murray . A little murray. Also White House Correspondent for Bloomberg News julie and in new york because its freaky friday, Eugene Robinson who should be here. Joe, it all doesnt make any sense. Can you make some sense of the week that just was . No, i cant. Nobody can. But i can say it was some of the longest introductions ever in the history of morning joe. We have a lot of people here. Did you see the cover of Bloomberg Business week . Its fantastic. I did. I thought you would like that. So whats happening in the news today, mika . Well we got a lot going on. Well try to figure out the next issue which is government by crisis. First the shutdown may be over but the divisions that sparked the standoff remain. Yesterday president obama spoke about the crisis that put the United States on the brink of default. There are no winners here. These last few weeks have inflicted completely unnecessary damage on our economy. Probably nothing has done more damage to americas credibility in the world, our standing with other countries, than the spectacle that weve seen these past several weeks. You dont like a particular policy, or a particular president , then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But dont break it. Dont break what our predecessor spent over two centuries building. Well, joe, at this point the president , you know, trying to shift the attention back to a second term agenda but also talking about what happened and what he feels the Republican Party has done at this point. His priority is next our Immigration Reform and a farm bill, but hes making the most of this. Yeah. This is what you call a victory lap and certainly a lot of people would say the president is entitled to that victory lap because he warned republicans not to do what they went ahead and go. Gene robinson, it doesnt matter whether youre in a row boat, the other person in the row boat is crazy or not you got to get them rowing your way or else youre not going anywhere. Im not saying, of course, republicans are, but he thinks they are. Lets face it. This has been an extraordinarily frustrating second term for this president who has been thwarted time and time again. Hell find its a lot easier to play defense than offense. He cant doing anything unless he figures how to get some of these republicans working with him. Where are we going to go . Yeah. Look at the big agenda items. Everybody says we need a grand bargain on budget Going Forward for economic growth, for deficit reduction, whatever your big priority is. In fact, how will we get a grand bargain when we cant agree to keep the government open or lift the debt ceiling. These irreconcilable differences between the president and House Republicans to me suggests that theres not going to be a big agreement on big issues, and that well probably be lucky in the immediate term get a little agreement on little issues that doesnt do a lot of harm. Gene, chauls krault hammer has a different viewpoint. Mitch mcconnell said another shutdown is not an option. Mcconnell said one of my favorite sayings is an old kentucky saying, theres no education in the second kick of a mule. The first kick of the mule was in 1995. The second one was the last 16 days. Government shutdown is off the table were not going to do it. Despite walking away from the shutdown with little to show for it senator ted cruz and this i dont get if anyone can explain this to me take a listen and tell me remains defiant in his effort to dismantle obama care. I would do anything and continue to do anything i can to stop the train wreck thats obama care and i think our focus should not be on d. C. Politics it should be on the people who are getting hurt. This was seen as the ted cruz shutdown. I said throughout this we shouldnt have a shutdown. I dont want a shutdown. There wouldnt have been a shutdown if you didnt go with the strategy we wont fund the government for six weeks there wouldnt have been a shutdown if president obama and harry reid said well not negotiate. Shut the government down. Does somebody at some point tell him to stop katy . I respect his opinion about, you know, obama care. Thats an argument that we can have. I wonder whether he goes back to his voters and they tell him and his constituents and they effectively as all the Tea Party Members will go back this weekend and are told youre doing a great job. We like the way you stood up to fortunate. Its the point of standing up rather than the outcome and the principle that was fought over. Thats what will boost their poll numbers and thats what makes me worried. Hes got incredible donations, got great response from the base. People are calling in thanking him for what do you. Its this expanding, amazing bubble. He doesnt understand the damage hes done to his colleagues or the futility what hes doing in trying to shut down the government over health care. Hes not intelligent. Very intelligent. Hes doing this for a very selfserving purpose. Some of the groups who were staunch allies of cruz have learned a lesson from this crisis. Their president came out and said look we realize we cant repeal obama care until 2016. That means they are not repealing it at all. At that point you have so many people, even with the horrific rollout of obama Care Exchange how do you say 10,000 people who signed up, how do you say no you wont get insurance. Jump in. Robert gibbs, my argument has always been what youre doing now is really hurting for 2014 and 2016. Ted cruz would say and mike lee would say great what are we going to do . Even in the best of years we may just get a majority, were not going to be able to stop obama care then. Then you tell us lets wait until 2016. Sam stein just said even if republicans win everything in 2016, it is too late. So this argument to ted cruz and mike lee and others, hey just sit back lets win this one in 2016, well win everything, has just been undermine bying rightwing nuts, sam stein, and hes exactly right. Its just too late. Look, i do think that katty is right. Ted cruz wherever he goes this weekend will have, be covered by adulation for his very selfserving actions. Ted cruz is not about how to move the Republican Party down the field. Ted cruz is doing a fabulous job of moving ted cruz down the field because he wants to be that nominee in 2016 to do whatever it is he wants to do in terms of governing. This is about ted cruz and its working well for ted cruz in ted cruzs base. Thats the big question what comes out of this and what happens to the tea party. The groups that back its members are bearing the worst of the backlash from the shutdown. The rightest, are a variety of scripts. Some of which have been good think tanks in the past but losing their reputation because of this radicalness. Are you referring heritage . Yeah. Of course i am. Heritage used to be the conservative organization helping republicans and helping conservatives and helping us to be able to have the best intellectual conservative ideas. Theres some real question in the minds of many republicans now and im not just speaking for myself, for a lot of people is heritage going to go so political that it doesnt amount to anything any more. I hope not. Ill try to help it survive and do well. Right now its in danger of losing its clout and power around washington, d. C. Little signs of fighting in the Republican Party. Heritage Foundation President jim demint wrote an oped in the wall street journal we wont back down on obama care. He said the law will send insurance premiums skyrocketing and obama care was not the central fight in the last election cycle. Things are growing more complicated for incumbent republicans. Five veteran senators face tea Party Challenges. And things are not much better in the house. The report says 14 seats up for grabs next year are leaning democrat because of the damage thats been done to the gop by this shutdown. Congressman from tulsa to left leaning states are in the most danger and groups like the u. S. Chamber of commerce will continue to back speaker john boehner. Major players in the Business Community are expected to take sides against Tea Party Candidates. Of course they were the ones that funded them in the first place. If elected that could cause more headaches. You see these challenges for republicans, but theres also a challenge for the white house because that website, now that story is going to emerge. How do they keep the balance of power and sort of the good wild, the moral high ground, however you want to put it on their side . One thing we were just talking about with ted cruz its so important the white house gets the roll out right. They need to get as many people signed up before december 15th who will be enrolled by january 1st. Come this next round of fights republicans cant make obama care an issue because then they are going to be seen as taking away health care from their own constituents. They need a big number. Yes. They need a big number. What is it, about 300, 500,000 internal documents shown they were trying to get registered in the first month. 36,000 is what they got. Based on what people are experiencing when they go to these websites thats a really hard target to get. The white house says they are working 24 hours, seven days a week. The president said this is unacceptable. They need to figure out a way to change the story line right now. I think it was interesting. We just saw orrin hatch on one side and these primaries on the other side an you perfectly encapsulated where the Republican Party is. Orrin hatch was scared of a primary last time and wasnt speaking nearly that clear as to the politicization of the Heritage Action fund. The question is, does the orrin hatches of the world take control of the party. Interest groups are not driving this bus any more were driving this bus. Were taking control of this. Or does what happened with these primaries to drive the bus which is whats been happening with tint groups. Lets talk about the difference right now, robert gibbs. If you can explain to the panel what you think the difference is between where orrin hatch is this morning and where Heritage Action is im sorry where ted cruz is this morning and Heritage Action is. Ted cruz goes home and hes a hero and he gets his Million Dollars, 2 million, 3 million. Not a bad deal for ted cruz. If youre Heritage Action and rely on business and other long term gop supporters to fund you Heritage Action situation is far more complicated. I would even dare say they are in a we bit of trouble right now because they have a lot of businessmen and business women angry. The biggest news to me the shutdown was coming to an end was two days beforehand when i was told by a Top Republican were losing all of our top businessmen and women. They are not going to give us money. Heritage feels that a lot more than ted cruz. Lets make that the third act. Republicans almost in a triangle here and i think thats whats going to be interesting. Does business go back trying to claim some aspect or section of the party. Do the members themselves, senators or even the house members decide we want to be in charge of our own destiny or do the Interest Groups and sort of the base thats now much more aligned on the right are they driving this bus . I think thats really the central play thats going to happen and i think it will determine what happens in the next six weeks around the budget and whether we are soon to be filming the sequel for the shut down and debt and deficit talks. The challenge for the white house is fixing the website. When it comes to the governments hearth website the cost overruns designing the site have been massive. Take a look at tom costellos report. Reporter the prime contractor is the u. S. Arm of a canada government, cgi federal. Their business grew dramatically during the bush administration. It was awarded a contract for Computer SystemsDesign Services to build the website. With a ceiling price tag of 94 million. By may of this year the contract showed cgi had spent 196 million and the ceiling price tag had soared to 292 million. The wall street journal reports the marketplace is generating flawed data for the Insurance Companies everything from duplicate enrollments and missing data fields to problems with eligibleilty and spouses reported as children. One reason for the problems the site was built on ten Year Old Technology that will need constant fixes and updates over the course over the next six months. Im going to go to gene robinson. I was going to go to joe. I got to tell you gees. The damage to the country over the past three weeks far supercedes a website not working. You know how these things work. This is a story that can fly. Deservedly so. This really is a disastrous launch for a program that ive supported. I think its a huge advance in health care. But come on. Its a website. And, you know, i cant imagine that, okay, its broken, it doesnt work right. Why is it taking so long to fix . At this point if its 10yearold technology why isnt another team, preferably a team of over caffeinated 20yearolds building a new website based on Current Technology . You know, why not do that and then put that online when it starts working. I know its complicated and everything but come on, people. They certainly need a little bit more coffee. Heres what i dont understand. The Obama Campaign did an amazing job during the last election cycle of using technology to get to people and to make things work. That was how they won. Thats what they do. Thats what they did. Youre at the white house when you ask them, are they going to fix this . They are trying to fix it. What do they tell you. Come on . Is there anyone there . One of the messages from the president when he came out and spoke yesterday was that government is here to serve the people and to do good things, it can be a force of good. This is one other thing that undermines peoples confidence in government. What they say its an apples and oranges comparison. Its one thing to get outreach to voters and another to get complex databases, put them in tax credits and show you which plans you have. Now its still ridiculous and the irony is a lot of states had to do the exact same thing for their own state pools and done exceptionally well. Oregon has done an exceptionally great job. The federal government cant do it. We have to be somewhat careful. We want to know how many people have gone on and how many people have signed up. Massachusetts was an instructive example. People went on to the website 18 times before they purchased health care. Ive said this before its not itunes. I heard this great song and i want to buy the album. This is highly personal. Thats why the website is so important because people need to go on and shop. They wont shop once. They will shop dozens of times before they purchase a plan. And then look, this has always been this has always been the single most important thing that was going to happen in second term. The implementation of health care reform. Immigration reform would being a great. This has always been the single most important task and they got to fix this. One of the lessons they took from the Medicare Part d roll out it was just a month of enrollment and there were all sorts of problems thats why they wanted to have this expanded. You have the first wave between now and december and then december. My bet they turn around and say we have to expand the Enrollment Period because how do you penalize people. You can wind up with the same delay republicans have been pushing finically. Coming up on morning joe we have the moderator of meet the press David Gregory. Melody barnes and Andrea Mitchell with revealing details about the health of former Vice President dick cheney. Up next, the top stories in the political playbook. And a check on the forecasts with bill karins. Beautiful weather in the east coast. Our friends in the rockies have been struggling. Once again its snowing. Snowed five inches in cheyenne, wyoming last night and now the snow moved out to denver. Even the downtown area of denver is seeing snow this morning. A slushy inch or 0 so but just enough to make you uncomfortable driving out there to school or work. Were looking at a beautiful weekend shaping up. The only other troublesome thing we have for you as you head out the door in the east is dense fog from jackson, mississippi to lexington. Airport problems will be because of snow in denver early and fog there in nashville to lexington,